Sunday, February 12, 2017

February, 12 2017 (theguardian) Britain is
being hit by dozens of cyber-attacks a month, including attempts by Russian
state-sponsored hackers to steal defence and foreign policy secrets, GCHQ’s new
cybersecurity chief has said. Ciaran Martin, head of the new National
Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), told the Sunday Times there had been a “step
change” in Russia’s online aggression against the west. His comments came as
the chancellor, Philip Hammond, told the Sunday Telegraph the centre had
blocked 34,550 “potential attacks” on government departments and members of the
public in the past six months – about 200 cases a day.

Allegations of Russia-sponsored
cyber-attacks became a focal point during the US election, raising fears that
the tactic was on the rise. Martin said Britain had been hit by 188 high-level
attacks, “many of which threatened national security”, in the last three
months. He told the Sunday Times: “In the case of government departments, [it
is] getting into the system to extract information on UK government policy on
anything from energy to diplomacy to information on a particular sector.” Attacks
by Russian and Chinese state-sponsored hackers on defence and foreign policy
servers are among those being investigated by the NCSC, the newspaper said.

Martin added: “Over the last two
years there has been a step change in Russian aggression in cyberspace. Part of
that step change has been a series of attacks on political institutions,
political parties, parliamentary organisations and that’s all very well
evidenced by our international partners and widely accepted.”

Hammond, a former defence and
foreign secretary, warned that hacks could bring down national infrastructure
and that even kettles, fridges and driverless cars were at risk. Writing in the
Telegraph, he warned that the “internet revolution” brought the threat of being
held to ransom by hackers, the theft of intellectual property and the “shutting
down of critical national infrastructure”. “Beyond hacked kettles and fridges,
‘internet of things’ devices, such as driverless cars, can present alarmingly
real security threats that could be incredibly dangerous if the right security
isn’t in place,” Hammond added. Their comments come before the NCSC is
officially opened in London by the Queen on Tuesday.